In the case where, for instance, various written application forms, data input slips, bill slips, receipts, or documents having predetermined forms for accounts, statistics, specification, or the like are issued or data is input into a data base by using the format of the document displayed on the screen by using an office apparatus such as a work station, office processor, personal computer, word processor, or the like, it is necessary that the form of the slip having blank columns to input and output data is defined and formed on the display screen of the foregoing office apparatus.
In general, there have been known two methods for forming such, one being a batch method whereby such image a form is formed by giving conditions by parameters from the outside and the other being a painting method whereby such a form is formed while interacting with the display screen. The above methods use a method whereby the operator executes a column interaction while looking at a picture plane to be formed and the form of the document of an original and draws data column-by-column on the display.
Ordinarily, in the business affairs of the user, the screen in concerned with the input and a form document such as a slip or the like is concerned with the output. In the present situation, to form such a screen or document as data to be processed by a computer, the format of the document drawn on paper is converted in column units on the display and drawn on the display screen.
However, when converting from the data on paper into data on the display screen, calculations for a position matching are not easy, column counting errors frequently occur and many man-hours are needed, requiring a long working time.
Therefore, as disclosed in prior U.S. application Ser. No. 07/550,521 of the same assignee, there is described a method whereby a format is read out from a recording medium such as a sheet or the like on which a format of a document has been written and a program is automatically formed from the content of the format. However, according to the above method, the format cannot be completely recognized due to various characteristics of the sheet of the document and printing color of the sheet of the document or conditions of a dirt, dust, or the like, resulting in an erroneous recognition, and confirming and correcting works for such an erroneous recognition on the screen are necessary. Consumption of time for the confirming and correcting works on the screen results in a decrease in value of the above automatic forming method in spite of the fact that the working efficiency was improved by reading the format from the sheet.
In the confirming and correcting works, terms or words on the slip are generally frequently written by small characters. If the format is displayed on the screen by the size as written, the characters are hard to read and it is difficult to correct.
Among documents to be read, there are many documents which are so large that the whole document cannot be displayed on the screen. In many cases, it is impossible for the operator to correct such a document while seeing all of it.
In the correction of a position or an interval between characters as well, when correcting on a unit basis of 1/10 mm, according to a method such as a painting method whereby a correcting position is directly indicated on the screen, errors frequently occur and there is a case where a recognizing process after correction as a next step is not correctly performed due to the errors.
Further, with respect to the correction of a ruled line, there is a case where the ruled line is not correctly read depending on the print color or the shade or depth of the print color. In such a case, it is necessary that the ruled line can be easily corrected.
Moreover, a form document has many blank columns among the rows and columns. If the form document is drawn as it is on the display, in many cases, the form document overflows the display screen If the document processing work is executed with the form document overflowed, a scroll of the screen occurs during the execution of the document processing work and a desirable influence is exerted on the document processing work executing performance. Therefore, it is necessary to display the form document on the area within the display screen as much as possible. The operator has formed the form document while considering all of the adjustments.
As mentioned above, it takes an extremely long time for the format forming works of the user.